Sydney Morning Herald State Political Editor

Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally is being investigated over whether she breached parliamentary rules by tweeting disparaging comments about fellow MPs and the deliberations of a joint select committee during a series of fiery exchanges this morning.

The committee is investigating the value of the Parliamentary Budget Office established by the former Labor government just before the March election to carry out independent costing of election promises.

Ms Keneally, who is a member of the Parliamentary Budget Office Committee, began taunting its chairman, the Liberal MP for Baulkham Hills, David Elliott, on her Twitter account during deliberations.

"In Parliamentary Budget Office Committee meeting. Liberals trying to railroad the report through. Won't let the report be considered in detail," she tweeted about 9.30am.

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Later she began attacking the Mr Elliott. "It's fairly clear that David Elliott doesn't know the standing rules of committee," Ms Keneally tweeted. "Somewhat embarrassing for him."

Soon after, she added: "Elliott just does not understand how submissions and committees work", before tweeting: "The Libs and Nats now inserting assertions in the report that have no basis of fact in any submission that came before the committees."

It is understood there were fiery exchanges between Mr Elliott and the former treasurer, Eric Roozendaal, who also sits on the committee, which prompted Ms Keneally to intervene.

The intervention provoked another committee member, the Liberal MP for Wyong, Darren Webber, to describe Ms Keneally as "a princess", to which she is believed to have taken great offence.

Ms Keneally's tweets were brought to the attention of the clerk of the Legislative Assembly, Ronda Miller, who was present at the meeting.

A spokesman for the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Shelley Hancock, confirmed both she and Ms Miller were investigating whether Ms Keneally had breached the rules relating to publishing committee deliberations.

"A formal response will come out tomorrow after the committee meets again," he said.

Mr Elliott told smh.com.au he felt it was "disappointing that we are debating a very important piece of public policy and Ms Keneally has decided to tweet the whole way through, possibly breaching the parliamentary rules".